Phillies Fail to Sweep Mets Again

The Phillies dropped a tough one to their former rivals 9-5 this afternoon behind the first shaky start of Vance Worley young career.

The Amazins were able to post 4 runs in both the first and second innings using a combination of small ball and Phillies miscues. Although Worley shut out the Mets in his last outing, they quickly jumped on him for 12 hits in three innings. Jose Reyes, who had two triples on the day, claimed that his team was now used to seeing the rookie pitcher and his stuff. They certainly were sitting on fastballs early in the count and used that strategy to rack up the hits.

With the ugly start, Charlie Manuel sent in Kyle Kendrick to eat another three innings before allowing Romero and Baez to finish the game. The discussion has started on how long of a leash Vance gets after this outing, but I can’t imagine it will have much affect on the skipper’s decision to continue to use him as the fifth man over Kendrick while Blanton is out. He’ll get another chance later in the week against Pittsburgh – so let’s table that discussion at least until then.

Nonetheless, the 8-0 hole Worley left for his offense was certainly a daunting task to overcome, especially without Howard, Utley, Ruiz and Victorino in the lineup. Yet, that didn’t stop the subs from trying. In the third, the Phils got their first run home on a Polanco single and managed to load the bases with one out. It was looking like they might get back in the game, but Ibanez popped out and BenFran struckout to kill the rally.

Like last night, the Phillies offense waited until the Mets starter was lifted before they really got the bats out. In the eighth, Raul lead off with a solo homer and was followed by RBI hits from Dane Sardina and Domonic Brown. A BenFran double in the ninth capped off the scoring for the boys in red.

The loss put the Phils-Mets season series at 6-3 in favor of the good guys. This also means the Phils start their nine game road trip 2-1 against the worst teams in NL; and are 15-12 with 2 games remaining in the month of May. Tomorrow Roy Halladay takes to the mound on Memorial Day in our nation’s capital – Phillies Nation will be there again for our second consecutive road trip in two days. I’m expecting a win.